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oppressed minorities of the United States of America--were
able to drop out of the system and become independent within
their own power structure, rather than dependent on the state's,
then they would have the chance to eliminate their considerable
racial prejudices toward one another, and unite themselves as a
single popular class to fight for equality, forming a united
front to abo]ish all classes through a prolonged series of
uprisings embodying a socialist revolution.

That's what the mass media called the philanthropy of "a
HaightAshbury band of hip social workers without portfolio"
and the Hun "Guerrilla Theater" and Emmett "Free
Food."

"Some Salvation Army!" Emmett often thought to
himself. But he was glad that the mass media joked about the
Diggers as mod monks and that the so-called heavies of the New
Left slighted the Diggers as lightweights and claimed that they
were politically naive and irrelevant. He was glad because it was
going to be a long haul of determined action and not just one
"revolutionary" outbreak by a bunch of leftist
rhetoricians, before the stage would be set for the total
reconstruction of society into a popular social democracy. And
Emmett knew that if he revealed the innermost truth of the
Diggers and their work, it would have only provoked their
annihilation by the government. So, even though it was frequently
hard to do in the face of the smug logorrhea chattered by punk
radicals, he just kept his mouth shut and tried to take care of
business.

It was after the Hun's piece had been printed, and while
Emmett was up at the Communication Company's office-pad that he
discovered Ramparts magazine was preparing a story about
the HaightAshbury, concentrating on the district's leading
figures, their political attitudes, or lack of them, and focusing
special attention on the Diggers, particularly Emmett Grogan.
Fully aware of Ramparts' facile dependency on muckraking
and frequent reliance on falsifying "for the good of the
cause," Emmett figured he had to try and do something about
the article or at least the parts about him and the Diggers. He
thought about it for a moment and decided to appeal to the
editors on the grounds that, if they publicized him and the
Diggers as radicals in their national magazine, it would
seriously interfere with their work and definitely hamper them in
their attempts to serve the people--the same people whom the
magazine purported to wholeheartedly support.

Tumble drove Emmett over to North Beach and dropped him off a
few blocks away from the ma~azine's offices before continuing on
[end page 304]